Contact Sport

I am sure we have all heard this before, “In sales, you must contact as many people as possible to be successful.”  This is certainly important, but part of that mantra is contacting the right people, the other part is knowing what you are going to say.  Are you a person who is looking to cold call and sell something or are you the kind that is going to concentrate on deepening  a relationship?  Both have their places.

Developing the relationship.
If you are developing a relationship, make sure you call or email and mention nothing about sales most of the time.  You will want the impact of you having an idea or desire to sell something not to be the expectation when you call.  Your relationship will not blossom if they cringe at the site of your number on their caller ID.

I’m calling to sell you something
Make sure you have a connection of some sort to the person you are calling.  try and get a referral.  If you are calling dead cold, you need to make an impact in the first 2 sentences or your call is over.  You will have to assume what the benefit is for the prospect before the cal, so some industry knowledge or research will be important.

It’s not just the phone
You cannot win at the contact sport of sales with just the phone and email.  You will need to use your network, both physical network  and your virtual one.  In person meetings work as well, but don’t forget to embrace the preferences of those you are targeting and adjust accordingly.
How much is enough?  You have to develop your own sales ratio, but if you want a place to start, in his book, “Never Eat Alone”, Keith Ferrazzi says you will not be successful in sales unless you talk to 50 people per day.